She was arrested and charged for possession and discharge of a weapon on school property too

A teenage girl from Florida has been expelled from her high school for an accidental explosion caused by mixing chemicals together [outside] on school grounds.

Kiera Wilmot, 16, a Bartow High School student in Florida, was expelled from school when her chemistry experiment exploded. She was mixing some household chemicals (toilet cleaner and aluminum foil) in an 8-ounce water bottle when the top popped off unexpectedly and an explosion occurred.

According to Wilmot, she thought this combination would simply create a bit of smoke, and that the explosion was an accident.

However, Wilmot was arrested on Monday and charged with possession and discharge of a weapon on school property and discharging a destructive device.

Kiera Wilmot

She was also expelled from school, and will now have to continue her high school career in an expulsion program.

These extreme consequences are due to zero-tolerance programs, which were enacted in schools in 1994. At that time, Congress required states to adopt laws that expelled students who brought firearms to school for at least a year. All 50 states adopted the laws in order to receive federal funding.

Many are in opposition of these laws, saying that it isn't fair to good kids who make occasional mistakes. Many oppose what happened to Wilmot as well, but the school district has responded to the incident saying that they reacted properly, as the law requires.

"Unfortunately, what she did falls into our code of conduct," Leah Lauderdale, a spokeswoman for the district, tells Riptide. "It's grounds for immediate expulsion.

"We urge our parents to convey to their kids that there are consequences to their actions."

YouTube "crazy class experiments". America is obviously chock full of little terrorists in the making. Someone call the FBI about the blatant disregard for public safety taking place in Americas schools. Don't forget to look for their sources of money. I strongly suspect PTA, and student groups may be inadvertently funding this terrorism via bake goods and chocolate almond sales. Bastards!

Folks this is what happens when you allow the craziness and hysteria over terrorism to cripple your country.By the way other articles on the web state this was done well away from the school but on school, property.

Depending on school policy the expulsion is probably appropriate although they should still exercise discretion and weigh all factors before applying the harshest punishment. So, this girl did something stupid. And possibly dangerous. She is not the first 16 year old to do something like this. She should be seriously reprimanded but the criminal charges are way over the line. Classic zero-tolernace dumba$s overreaction. Given th einformation in the article, destroying her future with criminal prosecution does not seem appropriate at all. But such is the sad knee-jerk world we live in today.